(Radio Iowa) – Many Iowans are online and looking for holiday shopping deals on this Cyber Monday, but Bao Vang, at the Better Business Bureau, warns that scams are on the rise, especially at this time of year. Vang says, “If someone is splashing ‘sale,’ ‘limited-time,’ or ‘deal,’ just think twice about whether this is luring you instead of actually being a legitimate sale.” She’s urging Iowans to make certain before they click “buy” that they’re on a retailer’s actual website, and not a fake mock-up.

“A lot of websites out there that are quickly made,” she says, “or can be put up relatively easily will mimic other sites and can steal photos, images, and products from other places.”

Vang recommends consumers do as much research as possible on the products and the sellers before buying anything.

Many Iowans were expected to be online looking for holiday shopping deals on Cyber Monday, but Bao (rhymes with COW) Vang, at the Better Business Bureau, warns that scams are on the rise, especially at this time of year.

(Greenfield, IA) – A man wanted on a Polk County warrant for Possession or carrying of dangerous weapons while under the influence, was arrested Saturday afternoon in Stuart, by the Iowa State Patrol. The Adair County Sheriff’s Office says 29-year-old Floriberto Zurito Cortes, of Des Moines, was being held in the Adair County Jail on the warrant, with a cash-only bond set at $2,000. He was also being held on an Immigration/ICE detainer and arrest warrant.

The Adair County Sheriff’s Office reports also: 24-year-old Kaitlyn Marie Hess, of Stuart, was arrested Nov. 26th in Stuart, for allegedly assaulting her boyfriend. Following an investigation, Hess was arrested for Domestic Abuse Assault causing bodily injury/1st offense. She was released from the Adair County Jail the following day, on bond.

And, a traffic stop near Greenfield for speeding and equipment malfunction (License plate light out), Nov. 26th, resulted in 19-year-old Rylan Joseph Faust, of Dexter, being cited. Faust was issued a citation for Driving While License revoked for OWI test failure. He was also issued written warnings for speeding and equipment violations. Faust was released from the scene of his traffic stop, with the citation and warnings as issued.

(Radio Iowa) – Forecasters say more snow is on the way today (Monday) after the Thanksgiving weekend storm brought flying flakes to much of Iowa, with the deepest accumulation reported at 16-and-a-half inches in Fort Dodge. National Weather Service meteorologist Jim Lee says a Winter Weather Advisory is in effect through 9 o’clock tonight for two dozen counties across Iowa’s southern third. “We are looking at snowfall accumulations down in southern and southeastern Iowa,” Lee says, “up to around two or three inches near the Missouri border.” Temperatures were quite cold through the weekend, with wind chills dipping below zero, but Lee says it may warm up into the upper 20s on Tuesday and Wednesday.

“It’s all going to come crashing down Wednesday night and into Thursday, it’s going to get very cold,” Lee says. “By sunrise on Thursday morning, you’re going to see air temperatures down around 15 below.” Keep the snow shovels handy, as Lee predicts still more snowfall is possible. “It does look like a little bit more snow Tuesday night and into Wednesday, but it should just be light accumulations, a dusting,” Lee says, “otherwise, it’s pretty dry at least through Thursday if not beyond.”

The Iowa State Patrol took more than 850 emergency calls over the weekend, including 210 calls for wrecks which left at least 20 people hurt. In Independence, a car ran off the road Sunday and hit a house, killing the driver. Also, a passenger jet skidded off a taxiway at Des Moines International Airport on Saturday night, forcing the state’s busiest airport to close for 12 hours.

DES MOINES – This holiday season, State Treasurer Roby Smith is inviting family and friends of IAble account owners to give the gift of financial freedom to an individual in their life. IAble, Iowa’s Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) plan, helps people with disabilities, and their support system save for qualified expenses while protecting essential benefits. Smith says “As the holiday season approaches, many of us are thinking about how to give meaningful gifts. Contributing to an IAble account is a powerful way to support independence for people who have a disability. In addition, it’s a gift that can make a lasting difference well beyond the holiday season.”

Giving to an IAble account enables family and friends to assist and actively participate in enhancing the quality of life for people with disabilities. Additionally, any Iowa taxpayer can deduct up to $5,800 in contributions to an IAble account from their state income taxes for 2025.

Connect with the Treasurer on Facebook, Instagram and X, to stay informed of updates and news.

More about IAble:
IAble, administered by State Treasurer Roby Smith, provides eligible people with disabilities and their support systems a way to save money while maintaining crucial benefits for federally means-tested programs such as Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Medicaid. Funds in IAble accounts can be used to cover qualified disability expenses like assistive technology, support services, medical bills and much more. If you or a loved one could benefit from an IAble account visit IAble.gov.

For more details about IAble, review the Plan Disclosure Booklet.

(Creston, IA) – Officials with the Creston Police Department report four men were arrested on separate charges over the holiday weekend. Two of the men were arrested on Assault charges early Friday morning at a motel, in Creston: 27-year-old Moises Robles, of Brownsville, TX, and 28-year-old Marco Antonio Trevino Solis, Jr., of La Joya, TX, were arrested at around 5:50-a.m. Friday. Both were charged with Assault Causing Bodily Injury or Mental Illness. Both men were transported to the Union County Jail. Each was being held on a $1,000 cash or surety bond.

At around 2:15-a.m. on Thanksgiving Day, 36-year-old Timothy Michael Nelson, of Albion, was arrested in Creston, for Possession of drug paraphernalia and Poss. of a controlled substance/3rd or subsequent offense. Nelson posted a $5,300 cash or surety bond, and was released from the Union County Jail.

At around 6:40-p.m., Friday, Creston Police arrested 35-year-old Jason Edward Sparks, of Creston, on three outstanding warrants from Adams County, for Failure To Appear. Sparks posted a $150 cash-only bond and was released from custody.

(Radio Iowa) – With Thanksgiving behind us now and a whole month of holiday happenings ahead, Iowans are hearing a lot about the importance of being mindful and practicing gratitude, but what does that really mean? Christie Harris, a wellness education specialist at Emplify Health by Gundersen, says it may sound like touchy-feely rhetoric, but there’s a lot of science behind trying to have a more optimistic outlook on life. “We’re learning about the role that emotions play, and what we’re finding is that when gratitude is such a powerful emotion, that when we can practice that more, it has a lot of wonderful mental, physical and emotional benefits for us.”

The November election is in the rear-view mirror, but there’s still a lot of division, disagreements and bickering, especially on social media. Harris suggests if you make a concerted effort to rise above the arguments, it can have real health benefits. “There’s so many things in life that it’s easy for us to get caught up in the negative things that are happening,” she says, “however, usually even in bad situations, there’s things that we can find some sort of spark or some sort of ray of hope from, and those are the things that we’re grateful for.” That could include being grateful for friends, for having a roof over our heads, or just being alive. Harris suggests taking a simple notebook and creating a gratitude journal to write in before going to sleep. Some of us wake up in the middle of the night and have all sorts of foul thoughts.

“If we can change that around, and we stop and we think about a few things that we’re grateful for, we write them down in our journal,” Harris says. “That’s getting the biochemicals in our bodies to be released. That is going to help us to be able to allow that autonomic nervous system to calm down, and allow us to be able to hopefully get a good night’s sleep.” The journal can also be something to look back on to cheer up when having a bad day. Harris says research is finding that being grateful can boost the immune system, and may increase life expectancy.

Emplify Health by Gundersen has clinics in Calmar, Decorah, Fayette, Lansing, Postville and Waukon, and a hospital in West Union.

(Radio Iowa) – An exhibit that opened this month at the Sioux City Public Museum focuses on the South Pole. Museum curator Matt Anderson says “Walking in Antarctica” features the work of artist Helen Glazer who visited several research stations on the continent in 2015. “She took these different photographs of the different landscapes and whether it’s the glaciers or the different ways that the intense wind that is prevalent in Antarctica shapes rock…and then she’s made several sculptures that are either of the different glaciers that she saw or of something they call ventifacts or these rocks that are sculpted by wind and wind blown sand,” Anderson says. In addition to the photos and sculptures, Glazer’s recorded voice is part of the exhibit.

“Helen, the artist, recorded a log as she was doing her travels in Antarctica,” Anderson says, “and on each label there’s a QR code that you can scan and you can actually listen to her talking about where she was when she took that particular picture.” Anderson says the artist had access to protected areas of Antarctica that may only be entered if a person has a government permit or is guided by a skilled mountaineer. “Because in Antarctica, the wind can blow 200 miles an hour,” Anderson says. That wind makes the majority of the continent a polar desert. “It’s even drier than the Atacama Desert in Chile. They get virtually no precipitation because of the way the weather systems are in Antarctica,” Anderson says. While most of Antarctica is covered in ice, there are some valleys with exposed soil.

“It is surrounded by an ocean current that basically locks it off from the rest of the world,” Anderson says. “It gets very little precipitation. There’s so much ice because it’s been accumulating for, like, 34 million years, but they don’t get a lot of snow, oddly.”

Visitors at the Sioux City Museum will be able to navigate through what appear to be a walk over frozen lakes, around towering glaciers, into an ice cave and through a colony of nesting penguins. The exhibit will be at the museum until March 9th.

(Radio Iowa) – New members of city councils and other public boards in Iowa face a new deadline to complete training on Iowa’s Open Meeting and Open Records law — and the Iowa Public Information Board says Iowa State University Extension Service training sessions fulfill that requirement. Sara Shonrock of I-S-U Extension says the deadline was created by a state law that took effect July 1st.

“Anyone part of a governmental body that is newly elected or appointed needs to take these trainings within 90 days of taking the oath of office or taking on the responsibilities of the office,” Shonrock says. I-S-U Extension has been offering these sessions for the past two decades — and Shonrock says they answer some basic questions about Iowa’s so-called “Sunshine Law.”

“What do they need to hold onto as far as records? What is the basis for how the public can ask for records? How are meetings held and how are closed sessions held?” she says. Shonrock says because of the new law, the number of these training sessions has increased significantly. “The training that I do with city clerks every year was a good starting point for having this happen,” Shonrock says. “…I’m glad that people are getting the message that they need to get out and get this training done.”

Shonrock says the new requirement affects up to 14-thousand people who are elected or appointed leaders of boards, commissions and other units of government in the state. The Open Records section of the law applies to far more people who are employed by in state government as well as by cities, counties, school districts and other forms of government. The push to require this training came after the collapse of a Davenport apartment building that killed three residents nearly two and a half years ago.

Representative Gary Mohr of Bettendorf says the city was reluctant to provide relevant information about events that led up to the collapse and the Scott County Attorney tried to keep a state report on the collapse secret after she announced the building’s owner would not face criminal charges.

(Radio Iowa) – Classes are cancelled today (Monday) at Iowa State University, the University of Northern Iowa and several other Iowa colleges to give students who went home for Thanksgiving more time to return after a massive storm dumped over a foot of snow in some areas of the state.

The Iowa State Patrol responded to 210 wrecks on Iowa highways from Friday through midday Sunday. The patrol says there were no fatalities, but 20 people were injured. State troopers were called to help well over 600 motorists during the storm.

The National Weather Service reports by Sunday morning, 16-and-a-half inches of snow had fallen in Fort Dodge. The Des Moines Airport was shut down for about 12 hours after a plane slid off the runway Saturday night.

Many churches cancelled services on Sunday and dozens of Iowa schools have cancelled or delayed the start of classes today (Monday). [For the latest list of area school late starts/cancellations, see the Cancellations page at kjan.com]